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Tuesday, December 25, 2012

Vayechi, Bereishis 48:14. Hands and Brachos

The most straightforward lesson in this discussion is that when you give someone a bracha, you should place your hands upon him or her. We all do this instinctively, for example, when a father gives the Kallah a bracha at the Badeken, and when parents give their children brachos Friday night and Erev Rosh Hashanna. Beyond that, I am just noting a group of interesting things about hands and brachos. Perhaps there is an association among some or all of them, some unifying theme. I haven't found it yet. Maybe you will. Three Examples of the Hand as Instrument of Bracha

Yaakov put his hands on the heads of Ephraim and Menashe when he gave them his Bracha. This was anticipated by Yosef, and, judging by Yosef''s reaction to the crossing of hands, the precise manner of his doing so was apparently quite important. I'm sure that all the brachos in the Chumash involved touch, and it was only mentioned here because of the surprise of putting the right hand on Ephraim.

Serious questions have arisen about the reliability of the Torah Temimah's story regarding the Gaon's minhag. For one thing, the sources that say this story are only the Torah Temima's friend and an equivocal statement in the Siddur HaGra. The Torah Temima is in Bamidbar, פרק ו, כג אות קלא:

and he makes it clear that he himself is not taking a position on the matter, only reporting what he heard from this person. You can find it here on page thirty.

Additionally, in a sefer called מעשה אלפס from Rav Bentzion Alfas, he says that he personally knew the baal hamaaseh, Rav Yechezkel Landau, and he told him an entirely different story that shows that the Gaon held exactly the opposite. (By the way, although some people make this error, this Yechezkel Landau is not the Noda Be'Yehuda. The Noda Be'Yehuda was older than the Gaon, and wouldn't have come to him for a bracha as a young chassan. Also, Rav Alfas, who was publishing in Bnei Brak in the forties, would not have met someone that passed away in 1793. Also, this Yechezkel Landau is described as the Mo'Tz in Vilna. The Noda Beyehuda never held any position in Vilna.)

From my experience with how the Gedolim of our times are at the "mercy" of anyone who claims to have spoken to them, and their words, even when understood, are as often twisted as they are honestly quoted, I would not put any weight at all on stories that impute a hanhaga to the Gaon, other than the maasim attested to in the Siddur HaGra, which was vetted by the Vilner Beis Din, or a story quoted by an Adam Gadol who saw it himself or says he relies on the legitimacy of the source. In those cases, even if I don't believe the accuracy of the report, at least I know that a talmid chacham feels that it is a legitimate and serious possibility.

I once spent Rosh Hashanna with Reb Moshe, and someone brought him some grapes in the afternoon, which he declined. The talmid, which happened to be Rav Moshe Meir Weiss, said, is this because the Rosh Yeshiva doesn't eat grapes on Rosh Hashanna, like the Gaon, as brought in the Siddur HaGra? Reb Moshe said No, he simply didn't want grapes at the moment. I said, maybe the story in the siddur HaGra is also a misunderstanding of a similar thing happening with the Gaon,? Reb Moshe ignored me. Then his Rebbetzin said the same thing, and Reb Moshe turned to her and said, with some energy, that the Siddur of the Gaon was cleared by the Vilner Beis Din, and they wouldn't make a foolish mistake like that.

Bottom line: the Gaon doesn't say this in any of his writings. The Biur Halacha in 128, where the Rama brings the Gemara in Kesuvos 24b,

and the Rama himself quotes Rishonim that say that it's hard to know what the problem is, brings the Bach that even duchenning mamesh would not be a problem for a non-Kohen unless it is done during davenning and with raised hands, and anyway most probably you're only over if you have davka kavana to do the mitzva of Birkas Kohanim. Yes, many mekubalim say that one should use only one hand. If you are noheig with the shittos found in Toras Hanistar, then you'll find some discussion about this, but absolutely no consensus. For the rest of us, all you have is the Torah Temima quoting someone he thinks is reliable, אני שמעתי מאיש אמונים, but another source cites the same event so differently as to prove exactly the opposite, and the other source identifies who and where and how, not just איש אמונים, and the Siddur HaGra in Leil Shabbos where it says that שמעתי בשם הגר"א שאסור לברך בב' ידים לבד הכהן, which is far from an assertion of fact or a source for practical halacha. So don't worry about it.

2. The Inability to Use One's Hands Does Not Diminish the Bracha- אונס כמאן דעביד דמי.If Bracha involves putting your hand on the misbareich, what good is Aharon's lifting up of his hands? He wasn't touching anyone. Of course, as Rabbeinu Bachay says, by Birkas Kohanim they can't go out and lay their hands on everyone's heads, but does this mean that there's no difference if there's actual contact? If by Moshe Rabbeinu Hashem told him that one hand was adequate, and Moshe, out of his own chesed, used two, then did Ephraim and Menashe receive lesser brachos because they each had only one hand? The Yaavetz in the siddur says that he had to do them both at the same time so as not to belittle the second, but the fact remains that each got only one hand. Does it matter? Is the pshat that you have to do the most that is possible, and אונס כמאן דעביד דמי that what you weren't able to do is viewed as if you actually did do it, which would be exactly the diametric opposite of the rule of כל הראוי לבילה אין בילה מעכבת בו וכל שאינו ראוי לבילה בילה מעכבת בו! Is the pshat like Bas Pharaoh, who stretched out her hand even though it was humanly impossible to reach the child, because a person who really cares will do what he can even if it is impossible to accomplish what he wants to accomplish, and what really matters here is the desire to touch the person?HOWEVER: see below, #7, regarding using the hands in Birkas Kohanim, where most poskim hold that it is essential.

3. Hands, Bracha, Water, and Fire

A. Water: Netillas Yadayim Brings BrachaR’ Shteinman in his Ayeles HaShachar brings the Gemara (Shabbos 62b, and OC 158) that Rav Chisda used to use more than the required measure of water for Netilas Yadayim, and he attributed his receiving bracha to this meritorious behavior. דאמר רב חסדא אנא משאי מלא חפני מיא ויהבו לי מלא חפני טיבותא . But we don't find that it is of any merit to be tovel in a mikva that has more than forty sa'ah of water. What's the difference? Rav Shteinman suggests that the halacha may be based on the specific association of hands with bracha.

I enjoy Rav Shteinman's clarity in writing, a style that was either the basis or a result of his career in Chinuch, so I'm bringing it verbatim, even though I found that he discusses many of the same things we do here:

B. Water: Kohanim are Required to Wash Their Hands Before Birkas Kohanim

See the Gemara in Sotah 39a, and Tosfos there, that Kohanim must wash their hands before Duchenning, even if their hands are clean. Duchening requires a washing that is specifically for the Bracha and that is immediately before the bracha.

This netilla has nothing to do with the regular halacha of needing clean hands for Tefilla. The Kohanim just finished Shmoneh Esrei. The implication is that this additional netilla imparts a special kedusha to the hands for Birkas Kohanim and this helps the bracha to be Chall.

The Semicha of Yehoshua was the only ordination that involved actual Semicha. The ensuing ordinations that we call Semichos, even the ones that continued the chain of the Semicha of Moshe Rabbeinu, did not involve placing hands on the head of the musmach. We call it Semicha, but there is no act of Semicha.

I think it's interesting that only the original Semicha of Moshe Rabbeinu involved the hands, and not the subsequent semichos. You would think that they would require a replication of the original ma'aseh. Although anointing a king with Shemen Hamishcha is not required for the descendants of David Hamelech, that's only because the Meshicha of David was a Meshicha of all his descendants that are worthy, and malchus became their kinyan through yerusha. But here, the next generations of Rabbanim Musmachim ought to need actual semicha. There is no Yerusha of Torah, it's only Morasha. The Tosfos Yomtov (Sanhedrin 1:3) leaves this with a question mark; he says "no reason has been given"- ולא אתפרש טעמא.

5. The Hands are the Cheftza of the Avoda, Not Just MachshirimThis is not sophistry and it is not yeshivisheh obscurantism. It's the best way I can think of saying it. If you can think of a way to make it more clear, please let me know.

Both the Avoda in the Beis Hamikdas and Duchenning requires the hands of Kohanim. But the role of their hands in Duchening is fundamentally different than the role of their hands in Avodas Beis Hamikdash.

The proof is from Tosfos in Sanhedrin 35b. The Gemara there says that a Kohen that had killed someone cannot duchen. Tosfos asks, why does he remain kasher to do avoda in the Beis Hamikdash but becomes passul to duchen? Tosfos answers with that Ein Kateigor, אין קטיגור נעשה סניגור, and that only applies to duchening, not to the Avodah. the ekns thing and says that it only applies for duchening, not avoda.

The Aruch Laner there ( here, end of the page) asks, what's the difference? Avoda needs the Kohen's hands, too. He answers that by avoda, the hands are a machshir of the avoda; The hands are like a Kli Shareis. But by duchening, the hands themselves are the object of the avoda. He says that we find that one should not look at the hands of the Kohen during Birkas Kohanim because the shechina is on them. Whereas by avoda, the shechina is on the things you're using for the avoda. Here it's on the hands themselves, and hands that were a קטיגור cannot themselves have the hashra'as hashechina to be a סניגור.

There's an interesting Chida on a similar topic: he asks, who cares that אין קטיגור נעשה סניגור? As the Gemara in Rosh Hashanna 26b says, that rule only applies within the Kodesh Kodoshim, not outside. That's why the Kohen had to wear Bigdei Lavan only in the Kodesh Kodoshim on Yom Kippur, but he wore gold outside. So what's the problem with a Kohein that killed someone? I would have answered like the Gemara in Rosh Hashanna answers regading Tekias Shofar, that since it is coming for "Zikaron," it has the same status as Lifnim. But that's not what the Chida says. He says that the limitation of Ein Kateigor to Lifnim only applies where the objectionable element is reminiscent of a Kateigor, like gold is reminiscent of the Eigel HaZahav. But where the object itself was the Kateigor, then it cannot be used as a Saneigor even Bachutz, just as Aharon was afraid to do the Avoda the first time he approached the Mizbei'ach. Here, these hands themselves are the Kateigor, these hands shed blood, so they cannot be used for Duchenning.

We see from the Aruch Laner, and really from Tosfos and maybe from the Chida, that the use of the hands in Duchenning is more than the requirement of hands by Avoda. The hands are not merely an element, a machshir, in the kashrus of the Avodah, they are the specific medium through which the Bracha flows. By a korban, the Dam, the animal, is the medium of Kappara and Ritzui, it is the Cheftza of the Avoda. By Duchenning, the hands are the medium of Bracha.

This concept is emphasized in the Maharsha in Sanhedrim 105b, who focuses on the different result of giving a bracha with one hand and giving a bracha with two hands. If the hands were just a machshir, then the chalos Bracha would be the same with one or with two.

In Bamidbar 6:26, it says that the Mitzva of Birkas Kohanim requires that the Kohaim say the pesukim, and the parsha ends by saying ושמו את שמי על בני ישראל ואני אברכם. What does "ve'samu" mean? Every other word in the passuk is explained. Regarding ואני אברכם, it is a machlokes (Reb Yishmael and Reb Akiva,Chulin 49,) as to who is the recipient of the אברכם in that passuk, whether it's the Yisraelim or the Kohanim. שמי means that Birkas Kohanim needs the Shem Hameforash in the Mikdash. But I want to know what ושמו means, and nobody talks about that word. What is this Simah? How are they "putting" the sheim Hashem on the people? Is this with their hands, that שימה means בידים, with a pe'ula, an act, as strongly indicated in Tosfos Kiddushin 34b (and all the Rishonim there- it's not just a lashon in Tosfos), and it would be another way of referring to Aharon's lifting of his hands towards the people? Or is it no different than לשום (את) שמו שם (Devarim 12:5, 12:21, and 14:24), and כתבו לכם את השירה הזאת ולמדה את בני ישראל שימה בפיהם (Devarim 31:19)? Is לשום שמו שם just another way of saying לשכן שמו שם which appears six times in Devarim (יב: יא; יד: כג; טז: ב, ו, יא; כו: ב), to indicate that the שימה has to result in השראת השכינה? (I am aware of modern "scholars" that say that this means that they used to actually write the Name of Hashem on the people, or touch the people with a metal plate with the Name on it. Rubbish.) Is it like וירדתי ודיברתי עמך שם ואצלתי מן הרוח אשר עליך ושמתי עליהם (Bamidbar 11:17) or ושמתי אני את פני באיש ההוא (Vayikra 20:5) which don't involve any ma'aseh that I can see? But if it doesn't involve a ma'aseh, what do all the Rishonim mean in Kiddushin 34b?7. The Machlokes Whether the Kohanim Raising Their Hands is EssentialAccording to the Mishna Berura in 128:sk50, the majority of Achronim say that if the Kohen does not raise his hands, he does not fulfill the Mitzva of Birkas Kohanim/there is no Bracha. For example, the Pri Megadim (EA121) says that if the Kohen does not raise both hands, it is passul. The Noda BeYehuda (OC 1:5) proves this from the fact that a Kohen with blemished hands, or a Kohen that had killed someone, cannot duchen. If use of the hands was not essential, they could duchen without using their hands. But he brings that the Shevus Yaakov holds that it is kosher outside the Beis Hamikdash. Also, the Radvaz is machshir an amputee.8. The Kohanim that Cover Their Faces and HandsThe Mor Uktziah in 128 (on the MA SK 54) says that it would be a mitzva to get Kohanim to stop covering their faces and hanging the Tallis over their hands, and also to get the people receiving the Bracha to not cover their faces. He says that a bracha should be given with a direct face-to-face connection. Regarding the hands, he says (starting at the end of the page):

9. I'm Waiting to Hear From You.I don't have a chiddush to say, or a unifying pshat in all these interesting things and questions. But in my experience, when anomalies occur in groups, there is some concept or rule that joins them, as Reb Chaim says in the Gemara in Chagiga 3b by Shoteh, the rule known to the outside world as Occam's Razor. Or, לכשתמצי לומר, they can be MADE to relate. If you think of something, I would be happy to hear it.